No they changed the Algo specifically to prevent asics from being able to mine it.
I agree with you about the Algo, and I think this is the part that I'm missing and confuse
I believe the Algo is managed by the software.
For example, PhoenixMiner 5.2 and older versions can't mine the new ETC algo, but the new ones over 5.3 no problem.
From a hardware point, there should be no difference between GPUs and Ant E3. They both are GPUs.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
By the way, Ant E3 was the most profitable asic miner ever. More than 2 years and a half and still profitable. Is unbelievable. And I'm sure E3 can continue to work fine, but I don't believe bitmain will release new firmware
Hope someone will found a way to patch the software
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Asics in your bitmain and all others are good for only the specific algos they have been designed and made for. The miner software in this case is basically feeding the raw data and receveing and conveying the results back to the pool. In a gpu setup the order and types of operations are coded in the miner software but it relies on the big complex gpu. So gpus can quickly adapt to any change in algos where asics take a lot of time and money to develop.